The audio interaction application called “personal assistant,” used in smartphones, etc., can operate in accordance with a relatively free utterance, unlike the command-type interaction system that can accept prescribed commands. Assume that the user says, “Let me know the weather forecast” to the smartphone. In response to the user's request, the smartphone activates the interaction application and then displays the weather forecast on its display screen.
The user may say, “I'll play golf tomorrow,” an unclear indication. In this case, the smartphone interprets the unclear indication, determining that the user means to say, “Let me know the weather forecast for tomorrow.” Then, the smartphone activates the interaction application and displays the weather forecast. In order to perform such a problem-solving interaction, the smartphone must store problem-solving knowledge in which various problems are associated with the solutions. The problem-solving knowledge may be prepared on the basis of the corpus and the speech history, in order to prepare solutions. Alternatively, the problem-solving knowledge may be based on questionnaire collected from the users, which shows the problems (i.e., questions) the users may give to the smartphone.
Still alternatively, the user's various oral instructions may be stored in association with the user's remote-control operations.